Building of fortress of Leopoldov. (História budovania pevnosti Leopoldova)

Building of fortress of Leopoldov

Autor: DOMOKOS György

DOMOKOS, György: Building of fortress of Leopoldov. (História budovania pevnosti Leopoldova)

DOMOKOS, György: Building of fortress of Leopoldov.

Vojenská história, 21, 1, 2017, pp. 38-60.

The fortress of Leopoldstadt could be built between 1665–1673 instead of Neuhäusel captured by the Ottomans in 1663, by the permit incorporated in the peace of Vasvár. The place of the fortress was appointed on the right bank of the River Váh, opposite to the Hlohovec. In regards to its shape Leopoldov was similar to Nové Zámky, it was built with six bastions. During the construction a lot of complications have arisen, partly technical, partly organizational, but the human factor played a role as well in that the work couldn’t go on with full speed. But this problem area has a part, about which the historical research doesn’t speak, what is the physical measurement of such a construction and the amount of work to do. Luckily a big amount of sources was preserved about Leopoldov’s construction. We can get a good general picture from this material about the complexity of the works, from the providing of building materials, the transporting of it, to the problems of the groundwork, not to mention the permanent shortage of money, the main set-back of every construction. We can fi nd in this material two documents being to my knowledge unique, which give exact data on how much earth and stone had to be built in into the planned six-bastion fortress. The numbers are astonishing even nowadays, 586 694 m3 earth and 82 797 m3 stone had to be moved according to the sources. If we would load this amount on standard wagons, we would get a 192 km long train. I tried to calculate approximately, how much manpower and how much time was needed in only moving the earth. Although the available data is insuffi cient, but yet it was concluded, reckoning with the transport devices, the manpower, the labour-time and the possible working performance, that only the moving of the earth took between 150-200 to 400-550 days. This is the whole time of one to three working seasons. This made understandable, why the constructions of the modern fortresses with bastions were never completed, of course besides some other impedimental factors.

Keywords: Military History. Hungary, Slovakia, 17th century. Fortress of Leopoldov (Leopoldstadt, Lipótvár)

DOI: https://doi.org/10.69809/vojhist.2017.21.1.2

Ročník: 21 | Číslo: 1/2017 | Stránky: 38-60